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The SEJ WatchDog

Searchable archives of the biweekly WatchDog TipSheet's story ideas, articles, updates, events and other information with a focus on freedom-of-information issues of concern to environmental journalists in both the U.S. and Canada are posted here on the day of publication. Journalists are eligible for a free email subscription; send name and full contact information to the SEJ office.WatchDog TipSheet is also available via RSS feed.

Latest WatchDog TipSheet Items

May 19, 2010

EPA Region 6 officials deliberately stopped creating written records related to their oversight of a New Mexico waste facility in order to thwart Freedom of Information Act requests from a citizens' group, according to an EPA Inspector General's report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed FOIA requests for information, alleging that the Justice Department refused to let the incarcerated super-lobbyist do on-camera interviews.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility obtained and disclosed a USFS memo ordering its law enforcement personnel not to talk to reporters about anything without first getting clearance from its Washington director and press office.

A federal district judge in New York ordered film-maker Joe Berlinger to turn over more than 600 hours of raw footage from his documentary "Crude," about a lawsuit by natives in Ecuador charging Chevron with polluting the Amazon rainforest there.

Find out more about potentially toxic chemicals in public commerce in the Envirofacts database, updated by EPA with previously unavailable information it collects under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

May 5, 2010

Award-winning investigative journalist Sheila Kaplan, an SEJ member, published a story in Politics Daily bringing to light some 73 interviews with 450 EPA employees depicting political interference in EPA science as an ongoing problem.

The EPA press office continues to ask reporters not to name top EPA officials who participate in news teleconferences and brief journalists. The latest incident, remarked on by InvestigateWest's Robert McClure, was a May 4 briefing on EPA's proposed delay in issuing its coal-ash rule.

The exact ingredients of the chemical mixture being sprayed on and pumped into the spreading BP oil spill are secret, even though some are rated toxic and may endanger the health of Gulf residents and ecosystems.